Letters Across Space
by beanrox
Summary: A younger Kirk and Spock become pen-pals. Both are, more than normally, confused.
1. Kirk, Sam, and BabyDaddy's

Yes, this is firmly AU, unless you'd rather like to think that, being rather young at the time, both Spock and Kirk forgot about their different-world penpal. Basically, whatever floats your boat.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, especially not the Reboot. If I did, Kirk would've had, you know, _brown eyes._

* * *

"James? What are you doing?"

"Writing to my pen pal, mom! I just got his new letter!"

"Oh, yes, that - what was it - Vulcan boy, right?"

"Says he's _half_ Vulcan. I asked him 'bout it, but he just said that it didn't matter for the, um - something something something confines something of our letters. He's kind of weird."

"Well, he _is_ Vulcan..."

"What's that got to do with anything, mom?"

"Ah, nothing, dear. And honey, you shouldn't ask about things like that. Some people can get uncomfortable."

"Like when Mrs. Smith's new baby had blue skin instead of orange like his daddy's?"

"Er...yes. How did you hear about that, James?"

"Uh...Sam?"

"Thank you, dear... _SAMUEL, YOU GET INTO THIS KITCHEN RIGHT NOW, DO YOU HEAR ME_?"


	2. Spock, Mail, and Literality

I am totally surprised - and psyched! - that this is so popular. ^^ So, here's the next installemnt, this time in little!Spock's POV.

Have fun!

* * *

"Spock, what are you doing?"

"Corresponding to my Earthan 'pen-pal', mother."

"I'm glad the letter finally arrived; they take much longer nowadays than they used to."

"By my calculations, only 3.21-"

"Ah, dear, it was just a phrase."

"...Very well."

"Do you like writing to your friend?"

"I find his veiws intruiging."

"That's...lovely, dear."


	3. Kirk, Paper, and Murder

Ta-da, and enjoy. :) I love writing these two - it helps that I've got a sibling of my own.

* * *

"Hey, lil' bro, what're you doing?", Sam Kirk asked, leaning over his younger brothers' chair, elbows jutting out either way, long blonde hair brushing James' shorter brown crew-cut as Sam tried to read James' scrawl over his shoulder.

"Writin'.", James replied stiffly, hunching lower in his straight-backed seat, leaning forward to hide his half-scribbled words from his older brother, who was having none of it. The_ last _time Jim had tried to keep something from him, it'd turned out to be some of Mom's chocolate chipped cookies, and he wasn't making _that_ mistake again!

"Give - c'mon, lemme see.", Sam said, reaching forward swiftly and snatching the half-written letter from underneath James' hands, the pen he'd been holding leaving a straggling blue line across half the page. Sam gaped at it, guilt and horror warring on his freckled face.

James' jaw dropped and his face reddened with fury.

_"You ruined it!", _he shrieked, his chair falling over as the nine-year-old hastened to get revenge on his brother, who promtly jumped away, dropped the paper, and raced out of the room.

"Mooooommmmm! Jim's tryin' to _kill me_! _Help!"_


	4. Spock, Cuts, and Variance

Haven't updated in ages, I know - hope everyone likes it. :3

* * *

"Does that hurt?", his mother asks, brushing a strand of curly hair behind her abnormally rounded ear.

"Not greatly.", Spock replies, trying not to wince as his mother applies antiseptic to the cuts on his left arm.

"What was it about this time?", Amanda asks, eyeing her short, pale sprout of a son out of the corner of her eye as she dabs the cotton ball on the lightly bleeding furrows.

"They...seemed to dislike my correspondance.", he replies, slowly; clearly he cannot fathom the _why_ of the situation. He knows his fellow students dislike him for being of mixed descent, but he _doesn't_ know why they don't like his pen-pal.

"They were just jealous.", his mother replies, smiling at him - giving her boy a small hug, the sort of 'sentimental contact' that she knows he only tolerates when nobody else is around.

"Jealousy is illogical, an emotion.", Spock protests, though from his more confidant stance it seems he's a little better for hearing other people aren't perfect, either. For Vulcan values of perfect, at least, Amanda reflects.

'Yes, well, you can't expect to ever reply to your friend if you're worrying about what those other boys think, hmm?", she prompts, clasping the small first-aid kit and closing the bathroom door behind her as she steps out and her son very nearly rushes to his room.


	5. Kirk, Home, and Ink

_I know, late-arse update. But hey - hope you all like? Tried something new; no dialogue._

* * *

It's wintery night outside when Jimmy Kirk finds the bit of neatly-folded synth-paper in the second drawer of his dresser.

Callused hands scrabbling at it, the paper is unfolded hurriedly, curiosity driving him to see what this is - he remembers it, now.

Precise handwriting - almost like someone had copied from the screen of a PADD, inhumanly neat - is what greets his nostalgia-glossed blue eyes, and Jimmy pauses a moment, glancing over his shoulder.

He can't heard anything from downstairs -_ mom's asleep_, he thinks,_ and Georgie_ - so why not put off leaving his hell-hole of a town for just a few more moments?

The rush of anger and impatience about his family, his home, his stupid little back-water town in his stupid little back-water state that had flared into rage at some point past 11 o'clock now subsided.

And it was gone completely by the time he hurried out to the mailbox to send a late, late reply, scrawled with his too-big thirteen-year-old hands and a blotchy, old-fashioned ink pen he'd spirited out from under his bed.


	6. Spock, Moons, and Emotion

Spock is surprised to receive a letter. The address on the message makes him frown for a moment, before he remembers - his pen-pal, from when he was a kid...

The scrawl is a little neater, he notes, comparing this new missive with some older ones he's kept neatly in his desk-drawer. It had been years since he'd heard from the other boy, but Spock feels a frisson of excitement as he sat down - the moons outside bright and heavy in the late night - and penned a reply.

Sending it off, the half-Vulcan thirteen year old hopes for a reply soon. He doesn't know what caused the sudden new message - his pen pal has never been much for details - but he's (_happy_) eager for it to continue.

* * *

_I do realize I haven't posted anything for this story in a dog's age, so - here you go!_


	7. Kirk, Cars, and Boredom

_Now we're getting into first-movie canon territory. So excited!  
_

* * *

Jim has just recently driven his dads' old car off the side of a cliff, so he's very, very happy for contact from someone around his age - when his mom promised to ground him 'til he hit old age, he's convinced (a month into his punishment) that _she wasn't kidding_.

No playing outside when he's at home, no TV, and no friends over. Jim Kirk was about to go crazy - but when he saw that he'd gotten a letter, most of that vanished. Now he had something to do, something to take his mind off of being grounded, off of Sam leaving among flying fists and harsher words...

It's a comfort, even if he wouldn't have phrased it like that had he even consciously felt it. To have someone to write to - to tell about his brother up and leaving (to tell it to someone who did not already know, who had not heard it through gossip and sneering comments about his family), to tell someone how_ terrified_ he was when that cherry-red car left the ground, how_ exciting_ it had been, even when he'd known he'd get in trouble for it.

So it's with contentment that he mails off his latest message, and counts down the days for a reply.


	8. Spock, Amanda, and Worries

Spock shoves the newest letter at his mother, looking - _dazed_ is the only word she can come up with.

"It's from my pen-pal.", he explains as she reads, squinting at the scrawl. "He's so..." Spock trails off, frustrated. The tips of his ears pinken (he got that from her side of the family, she thinks warmly, one of the few physical attributes he inherited from his human lineage).

"Illogical?", she suggests, bemusedly handing the letter back. For all of his clear bewilderment, Amanda notes that her son still carefully tucks the letter into his front pocket even as he nods at her word choice.

If it was any of the neighborhood children doing such dangerous, death-defying things, Amanda would have banned Spock from socializing with him immediately. But, of course, none of the neighborhood children - it's hard to think of them with so casual a term as 'kids' - would never do such dangerous, rebellious things.

But this pen-pal, all the way out on Earth, is harmless - they'll never meet, she's certain. It's improbable, nigh impossible. Spock's heart - and his fathers' will - is set on going to the Vulcan Science Academy, and she herself knows very well how rare it is for humans to visit the planet Vulcan. She sees perhaps a dozen a year, and never any children.

"Well, my Sprocket, why don't you write him back, ask him to explain? Perhaps tell him to be more careful, if you're worried.", Amanda suggests, holding back a smile as her son grimaces at the childhood name.

He still hurries back to his room, however, and she can hear his stylus tapping away as she waters the garden.

* * *

_I'm using dialogue and description here as well as this being mostly from another persons' POV; trying something a little new. Tell me if you-all like it!_


	9. Kirk, Tarsus, and Cracks

While Jim Kirk gets his pen-pals' letter, he doesn't get a chance to read it. It gets put aside while he's helping pack up everything for the move to Tarsus V - 'it'll be good, a new start, Jimmy!' he can remember his mother saying whenever he questioned the move; it's something years later that he remembers so much he can almost hear it in his dreams.

He never talks to his mother about how it may or may not be her fault for putting them in the way of a mad-man's regime. She has enough guilt, and it's clear she thinks it's her fault. He might think that on some bitter, hungry nights - nights spent absently touching his split lip or possibly-broken-but-who-can-tell? finger. He wouldn't say it to her face even to save the universe, though. He tries to be a good son, when he can. He tries not to get caught stealing, or teaching Thomas how to read, and he's one of nine who manages to get to safety after seeing Kodos's face, so Jim counts himself luckier than four thousand other people and leaves it to that.

Back on Earth - after months of space travel to and from safe zones, recollecting and rebuilding their social skills and shattered dreams as well as some proper weight - he finds some of his things. A few clothes and odds and ends they'd left at the house, deciding they'd simply come back to get them if they ever needed to. His PADD (scratched, the upper left side radiating hairline cracks from that time he dropped it down the stairs) is buried underneath two shirts, a pair of shoes two sizes too small for him now, and a lamp he doesn't remember as looking so ugly before.

He double checks the date when he finds the letter buried under ads and spam mail, then reads the whole thing twice and has to hold back hysterical laughter (_no, none of that, can't laugh like that something might break might shatter him right down the middle)_. His pen pal was worried about him driving his dads' old car off the cliff. The whole thing had happened a year, maybe two years, ago, but it felt like lifetimes. He wondered if his penpal even thought about him anymore. Had he been worried after no response? Angry? Maybe he'd just gotten bored, or assumed Jim had.

For another few hours, setting up the house and clearing away all the layers of dust took his mind off of that problem, though he ended up staring at the glowing screen for three hours that night before tapping an answer. He's unsure if it takes him so long because he's become so unused to modern technology anymore, or if he's just crazy, trying to explain that he'd managed to live through a genocide that killed thousands. But he's not crazy, Jim tells himself. The doctor's'd cleared him and his mom, hadn't they? And they would know - they saw dozens of beings every day. They were professionals - they didn't let crazies slip through the cracks. (Didn't they?, he wonders sometimes, when he wakes up soaked in sweat, scarred hands shaking.)

_Hey, Penpal._

_I told you in my last letter that my mom was thinking about moving, right? It's a funny story..._

* * *

_Alright, here's Tarsus IV, and a bit of a letter. I didn't mean for it to take so long, but Jim kept wanting to angst. There might be a Bones cameo soon, what do ya'll think?_


End file.
